Australian and New Zealand resume format

• Two to three pages for experienced candidates; one to two for graduates. A4 paper.
• Contact details, a short career summary, then key skills.
• Reverse-chronological experience with achievements, not just duties.
• Two referees with contact details, or a note that they are available on request.
• No photo, date of birth or marital status.
• Australian or New Zealand English (organise, centre, licence).

1. Contact details — name, mobile, email, suburb and state (or city), LinkedIn.
2. Career summary — three to five lines tailored to the role.
3. Key skills — six to ten skills from the job ad you can back up.
4. Employment history — title, employer, location, dates, a line on the role’s scope, and achievement bullets.
5. Education and training — qualifications, including TAFE and short courses that matter for the role.
6. Licences and certifications — driver licence, White Card, working-with-children check, high-risk work licences.
7. Referees — two people who have supervised you recently.

Recruiters on Seek and in agency databases often decide from the first third of page one. Here is that part for a mid-career candidate: contact details on two lines, a summary aimed at one role, and skills a recruiter can match against the ad.

Notice what the summary does: it names the role, gives scale (how many staff, how many awards), proves quality with a number, and says what the candidate wants next. A summary that could describe anyone, such as “hard-working team player seeking a challenging role”, is the one most recruiters skip.

Australian and New Zealand employers generally expect more detail than American ones, and a two- to three-page resume is normal for someone with several years of experience. Length is not the goal, though: older or less relevant roles can be reduced to a line each, and every page should be relevant to the job.

The most common weakness in Australian resumes is a list of duties copied from a position description. A recruiter already knows what a payroll officer or site supervisor does. What they want to know is how well you did it. Rewrite each duty as a result: what you did, for whom, and what changed.

Not every achievement has a number. Where it doesn’t, say what changed: a process you introduced, a system you were trusted with, a team you trained.

Recruiters screen on work rights early, especially agencies filling roles quickly. If you are not an Australian or New Zealand citizen, put a one-line statement under your contact details so nobody has to ask. Use the visa’s plain name and subclass, and the expiry date if it is temporary.

Working holiday visas usually limit how long you can work for one employer, so expect that question for permanent roles. New Zealand citizens can live and work in Australia under the Special Category visa (subclass 444); “New Zealand citizen, full working rights in Australia” covers it.

The two countries follow the same conventions, and a resume written for one will be read without trouble in the other. A few details are worth adjusting.

If you have qualifications from overseas, add the local equivalent where you know it, for example “Bachelor of Commerce (University of Mumbai), assessed by VETASSESS as AQF Bachelor level”.

Listing referees on the resume is common practice in both countries. Choose people who supervised you recently, ask them first, and tell them which role you’ve applied for. Include their name, title, organisation, phone and email. If you’d rather not share their details yet, write "Referees available on request" — both approaches are accepted.

In trades, construction, mining, health and education, licences and checks are screening criteria. List them as plain text with numbers where relevant: trade licence, White Card (general construction induction), high-risk work licences, first aid, driver licence class, and working-with-children or police checks.

Australian Public Service roles are assessed against the capabilities in the role description and, often, selection criteria. Many agencies now ask for a short pitch or statement of claims alongside your resume instead of a response to every criterion; the job ad says which, and how long it may be. New Zealand government roles similarly assess against the competencies in the position description.

See how to address APS selection criteria for the detail.

Most private-sector applications in Australia and New Zealand expect a one-page cover letter, even when the form marks it as optional. Use it to connect two or three of your achievements to what the ad asks for, and to explain anything the resume can’t, such as a relocation or a career change. The Australian and NZ cover letter templates follow local conventions.

• Squeezing ten years into one page because an American guide said so. Two to three pages is normal here.
• An objective statement about what you want instead of a summary of what you offer.
• Duties copied from a position description, with no results.
• Unexplained gaps. A single line such as “Career break: caring for a family member, 2023” is enough.
• US spelling (“organize”, “center”) in a resume for an Australian or New Zealand employer.
• Referees who don’t know you are applying, or whose details are out of date.

Large employers, labour-hire firms and government e-recruitment systems parse resumes automatically. In Australia that often means PageUp (common in universities, state government and health), Workday or SuccessFactors. Keep the layout simple, use standard headings, and write licences and skills as text that matches the job ad. The free ATS resume checker shows what a parser reads.